The plot finds government operative Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi) who tracks and stops terrorist threats before they occur on the run and the focus of Finch and Reese's attention.
Sameen Shaw, a government assassin, and Michael Cole, a computer specialist/operative working for Special Counsel, neutralize a terrorist plot, acting on information from a Pentagon group called "Research".
Cole suspects that Research may sometimes be wrong, having found out from the Social Security number belonging to an electrical engineer they had previously killed that he was hired by the US government, not by terrorists.
While on the run, Shaw is captured and tied up by Root, who believes she may hold the key to the Machine's location and plans to interrogate her.
She goes to confront who she believes to be Control (head of the ISA's operations using the Machine) but ends up meeting Special Counsel, and surprisingly returns the flash drive to him with the information Cole had recovered.
Club gave the episode an A rating, and said that, with the directing debut of series creator Jonathan Nolan, "his work here has the confidence and verve of someone who understands the world he’s created, and the rules of the game his show plays with viewers, well enough that he can mess around with the formula a little" and "illuminate and expand on Person Of Interest’s series mythology.